The Knife's Edge

The Ronin Saga, Book 1

By: Matthew Wolf

Narrated by: Tim Gerard Reynolds

Length: 20 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's Summary

When legends come to life, the world trembles from a single name. Ronin. Once-heroes from a different age, they wield elemental powers: wind, water, fire, stone, forest, sun, moon, flesh, and metal. 

At the same time, a young man discovers his best friend with a sword in her stomach and dark wings sprouting from her back. Guards rush to the scene and accuse him of the act, and he is forced to flee. 

In a new world without his memories, Gray must find his way amid legends and darkness, as he wrestles with an elemental power inside himself. A power all too similar to the infamous Ronin.

©2014 Matthew Wolf (P)2020 Matthew Wolf

Good grief...

Honestly, I started to write a list of everything that went wrong in this book, but then I gave up because it grew too extensive... so here's one particularly large gripe: The author contradicted himself Sooooo many times, that it became maddening; and many of those times the contradiction would happen after only a few paragraphs. I wish i could give examples, but it would spoil this ridiculous plot. A plot in which most new characters are introduced simply to provide fodder for the impossible dark army--which, apparently, can arrive anywhere in the world, regardless of time, or the logistics of moving so many creatures from one place to the other. Ugh.... Sooo many things. It makes me want to slap this guy's editor. Just who in the world was checking for continuity in this thing?! Ugh....

Ridiculous

That was the worst book I’ve ever read or listen to. The only saving grace of the entire book was Tim Reynolds reading it. It was like hearing a story made up every night by a dad for his kid at bedtime who was trying to remember what he made up the night before. the author was trying to connect massive ideas without fully explaining them. The characters were completely under developed. The most disappointing thing is it this plot and story could’ve been amazing Epic high fantasy. I listened to the entire thing hoping it would redeem itself by the end but unfortunately I wish I never started it. I never write reviews but immediately after finishing this while driving, I had to pull over and write a review hopefully to save somebody else from reading it. I feel bad for saying it but this book was not good.

Too abrupt

Tim's performance as always is amazing, his performance alone is what allowed me to finish this book. The story and plot are excellent, everything you could want from an epic fantasy. The negatives come with the story progression and character development. Every event that happens in the story is abrupt and feels like its missing context, I don't want to give any spoilers, but to give an example I kept thinking that I had missed a chapter or two and had to re-wind and double check. Another gripe of mine stemming from the same thing, the character development and growth. I will give an example here, The main character bumped into someone in a crowd and by the end of the chapter they were fast friends, fighting the villain together. Another is when the main character learned to wield his powers, powers that took his counter parts a 1000 years to learn and only took him a brief fight for his life and about 5 min. I felt that it was jarring to the flow of the story and to the reader to have to cope with the sudden and abrupt advances of the story, an extra chapter here and there would have smoothed out the story and made for a much better reading/listening experience. I like an author who isn't afraid to have his characters just sit in a pub and get drunk. Also the swear words are stupid. "dice he swore".... really, all the words in the world and you choose "dice"..

Extremely meh, standard fantasy flair

While this isn't the typical vancian wizards and warriors kind of fantasy. It wasn't exactly anything fresh.
humans are low magic and live in a very medieval kind of world (at least that is the impression i got)
and all the magic is in the elven kingdom, etc....
there are a couple special humans though...

There are contradictions in the book and the MC is a total moron. There are just parts of the book where i am sure the MC deliberately refused to put pieces that are right in their face together just so it didn't mess up the story the author had planned. I backed this on kickstarter as it seemed interesting. I regret it and I probably won't read the rest of the series I got as ebooks from the kickstarter.

extremely meh, and i will probably never finish the last hour i have in this audiobook.

also the times they referenced "a knife's edge" in the book i felt was not normal speech and cringe worthy. I am fairly certain it was simply put in there so they could have the title in the book or for the title to make sense in the context of the book.

Interesting story

The story itself was well paced and especially well read by Tim Gerard Reynolds. The only real criticism that I have is that Grey, the main protagonist, constantly gets to the point where he is about to die with no apparent options and something always comes up to save the day. Pretty predictable. That aside, it is fun to see Grey mature and grow into his newly acquired powers. The story ends well and sets up for the next book. Fairly violent but clean otherwise. Overall an enjoyable story.

Anime if Anime were Western Epic Fantasy

There's a lot here that's actually really interesting. Neat world building, some cool magic, and despite the length of the story it moves along at a good pace. The narrator is great. There is, at the core of the story a good mystery and a solid basic idea.

It's just not told in a very gripping way. It's very by the numbers. To give a non-spoiler example, I have no idea why the story kicks off giving us the MC's blandly tragic story just for him to lose all memory of it very quickly. "And then he forgot his name" <story continues> is a bizarre choice to me. I'd actually suggest skipping to 1:46:00 right away if you get this book. It doesn't hurt your ability to understand the story at all and makes Gray a more compelling figure than he is when you know his origins. Just don't listen to anything before that.

Unfortunately it's a recurring issue throughout the length of the story. Characters are introduced who serve no real purpose in the plot. It's got a dumb prophecy that someone apparently decided to keep secret for... some reason. Events transpire and they feel like filler. The final product feels like a draft that desperately needed refining from start to finish.

The characters are the the biggest drag on everything. Most of them are bland and shallow and feel copy pasted from other, better, tales. Most of the characters do whatever keeps the plot going rather than something a person would actually do. Dialogue often goes into a 'who talks like that' direction and they contradict themselves within the same scene, like doing something and then saying they never do it.

How much of a problem the other things are, really depends on your tastes.

This story runs on cliches from mediocre anime. I have no idea if it's intentional. And I'm not just talking in a generic sense. right down to the formula of the story and the way it's told, it's all anime cliches. The plot and the telling typically fall into shonen battle manga behavior when it suits events. Characters scream randomly, get enraged out of nowhere, forget things they knew, know things that are conveniently out of the blue. Events area always perfectly timed that people can go into lengthy explanations despite what should be a frantic moment. The MC has cliche internal monologues about what they can/can't do and then go and do one of those things like the internal debate didn't matter. Details are revealed haphazardly to get them out of the way rather than allowed to naturally unfold.

I think some of that might not be bad actually if you're unfamiliar with the Shonen genre. They might even be fresh ideas if you're more familiar with epic fantasy. Unfortunately I'm quite the anime fan, so I couldn't escape the groaning sense of derivative ideas, cliches, and poor plotting despite the somewhat novel setting and strong core concept behind the tale.

A Fresh Take on Elemental Magic

Matthew brings a new twist to the fantasy trope of elemental magic. Taking a fresh approach by including nine elements and a world lore that is easily, approachable and blended in to the story without making it seem like the reader is stuck in a history class. Tim takes Matthew's words and brings them to life; you can easily experience the story and the imagery it provokes.

All in all, an excellent listen and a series to follow.

Awesome book!

It kept me needing more the entire time. Can’t wait to see where it leads next.

Very creative world and cool magic mechanisms

I really enjoyed this book. This book has a very cool blend of character development, creative background/world, and really interesting use of magic.

The book started off quickly and jumped right in with a chaotic but intriguing introduction to some important characters and then a surprising gruesome death. The world is very well developed and has tons of history which is developed further as the story continues.

I really like the characters especially Darius who is a rough, gambler rogue but deep down and has a good heart.

The story continues as it weaves deeper explanation of the use of magic, or threading… And also the power of another type of character, the Ronin. The Ronin have a separate power and a clouded history which results in some misconceptions about their nature and purpose for reappearing in the world.

The book is injected with action scenes that are really enjoyable and intense, including fights against villains, dragons, wolves, and other monster types that were created specifically for the series.

It’s a great read and I really enjoyed it.

Darkness creeping

The "darkness creeping" into the main characters body over and over at unpredictable points in the story disrupted the otherwise flawless experience of The Knife's Edge.

A good premise but lacking continuity

As a seasoned fantasy reader I have tried doggedly to find new captivating fantasy storylines, originals like the name of the wind or the wheel of time. This book starts out well but has too many holes and jumps of narrative where you question the plot too often. Perhaps I'm just too old a head but this novel should be classified for the younger reader.

Really enjoyable and would highly recommend

I was given this book to listen to and review. I absolutely loved it, it had everything I wanted.it was fast paced and the story was overall very well written. I can’t wait to get to the next book. And it was narrated excellently.

“Any blacksmith can make a killing tool”

Great listen!
I really enjoyed this book. There’s plenty of action, intrigue and magic for everyone. Really well written and narrated. Tim does a brilliant job with setting the pace and has great easily distinguishable character voices.
Highly recommend and am looking forward to the next in the series.
This is my honest opinion on a free review copy.

great listen.

well written and great story and awesome narration as always from Tim gerald Reynolds. x

Awesome epic fantasy!

Loved the complex plot with all the different characters and amazing world-building! The narration was excellent!

Started well but descended too far into YA

I enjoyed the first half of the book, as it progressed however it seemed to become more childish. Kids beasting impossible odds, protagonist making frustrating decisions and the evil side suddenly becoming much easier to kill than at the start. Overall not for me.

brilliant

A quest , a young man finding himself. I enjoyed listening and learning about characters. I really enjoying this story. Magic, creatures, dragons, mystical items, warriors.
What more can you ask for.

I recommend this book.

Great story, fantastic narrator!

The Knife's Edge is a great story and a great start of what has to become a great series. The story is fast paced, thrilling and exciting. In the book something exciting happens on almost every page, so in the audio book this translates to almost every minute. This all without getting tiring, a great job by the author.
I loved reading the book and I loved it again when listening to this version. Having read the earlier version of the book, some parts were new to me, which was a nice surprise. As a non-native English speaker, sometimes the language used was a bit 'difficult' for me, so I was glad to have read the book first, in my own tempo. This helped especially with names of places, people or objects: I could now easily recognize them because I knew them already.
The performance of Tim Gerard Reynolds is superb, as promised by Matthew:) He is able to give the main characters each their unique voice, so they are easy to recognize and come even more to life!
Now on to the next part: Citadel of Fire!